ARQ Ordinary Places

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Ordinary places


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Contents

Introduction 4

Summary:Sparking the debate 8

Mobilising publicinvolvement 12

Changing places to

become world class 18

Next steps 24


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Ten years on from Lord Rogers urban task force,

the governments World class places strategypointed to evidence that our collective ability tomake great places has been relearned. Many citycentres have improved beyond recognition. Placeslike Sheffields Peace Gardens are so good theyalready feel part of British heritage.

Over ten years, CABE has built a network of localdesign advisors. Listening to these architects,planners, engineers, landscape architects, urbandesigners, surveyors all leaders in their professions keeps us in touch with the way people feel aboutthe places where they live. We have asked them whatwould make the biggest difference to the quality of

places across England. They came back with ideasdirectly informed by their own local experience.

They told us that the ambition in World classplaces can inspire change. With the right cultureand conditions, ordinary places can achieve thesame levels of resurgence as our flagship citycentres and become world class too.

Introduction

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ChimneyPotPark,SalfordDavidMillingtonP

hotographyLtd


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Ordinary places are where more than 80 per centof people live. They are found in every city, townand village, but they miss out in comparison to moreglamorous locations. They are the residential ringsaround big city centres; the smaller post-industrialcities; the varied and distinctive areas often lumpedtogether as suburbs. In fact, ordinary places make

up most of our built environment. These are theplaces that now deserve more care and attention.

Ordinary places have been nourished and cherishedfar less than city centres. Many now have a frailidentity and do not function well. Local parks andpublic buildings have improved, but in many placesugly commercial development, heavily trafficked

roads and badly designed new housing still erodelocal confidence. Such places will struggle toprosper in a low carbon world. Meanwhile, reducingbudgets for management and maintenance couldnow lead to shabbier, dirtier streets, parks andpublic spaces, lowering sights to a point where anunbridgeable gulf opens up between the best andthe worst places.

We need a debate to ensure that clever choices aremade in straitened times, and that they are driven bylocal people directly engaged in improving the placeswhere they live and work. The design process is aproblem solving tool, which should be made availableto the people who can use it most effectively to help

Sparking the debate

What will most

help local decision-

makers to makethe right choices?


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each place become world class. This is the surestway to cut resource use and equip local economiesto flourish through creativity and innovation.

Four reasons to care about ordinary places

Ordinary places are usually taken for granted butthey need more attention because:

s They are where most people spend most of theirtime, and so have most influence on quality of life

s Our economic future depends on the skills,networks and social capital they will generate

s They hold the key to mitigating and adapting to

the effects of climate change

s We need to appreciate what we already have andmake better use of the existing buildings andspaces we inhabit every day

Above all, we know this matters to people: 87 percent of the public believe better quality buildings

and public spaces improve their lives.1s

Ordinary places 7

The gulf between the best

and the worst places

South Gate in Totnes is a delightful, leafy,community-led development. Local peoplerejected early designs (pastiche Devonian

vernacular) so the architects worked in closepartnership with the council, the developer andhousing association to ensure more distinctiveand varied designs. Its obvious that thesehomes were built with care and with attentionto sustainability and green infrastructure.They respond well to the landscape, and feelas though they belong to the place and only

to that place.

Queens Hills on the outskirts of Norwich is,by contrast, a large development on an isolatedsite off the bypass. Theres only one accessroad, via four roundabouts and an out-of-townshopping centre. The houses are the productof standardised industrial processes, and

could be anywhere. They are badly designed,monotonous, and built from low-qualitymaterials. There was no vision for a community,and the result is a disheartening place to live.

These are both quite ordinary places, yetSouth Gate was the overall winner of the 2009Housing Design Awards, and enhances its

surroundings. Queens Hills could never beentered for an award.1 Attitudes to the built environment, Ipsos, MORI for CABE, 2009


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Ordinary places 9

The important challenges facing Britain frugality,living more sustainably and fostering civicengagement will all be played out in ordinaryplaces. So they deserve to be the focus of debateabout how they should develop in the future.

CABEs role is to support local decision-makers.

We strengthen capacity and share expertise withthose who have to deliver new buildings and places.We think that the debate needs to resolve inparticular how to ensure quality without centraldiktat, by supporting local decision-makers to makethe right choices.

So how can public involvement in placemaking

be mobilised, to nurture and strengthen communityand create well-loved places with character? Andwhat other changes can help ordinary places tobecome world class? Below we summarise somethoughts on how this could be done.

How do you mobilise involvement?

Teach visual literacy.

CABE encounters too many clients and decision-makers in local communities who struggle torecognise or value good design. Tomorrows leaderswill similarly fail if they do not understand how gooddesign underpins the potential of cities, towns andvillages, helping them to flourish. Visual literacy

Summary:

sparking the debate


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should rank alongside verbal literacy and numeracyas a core skill every pupil learns. Schools will beoffered a programme introducing the top 20 bestdesigned, most successful places in the country.

Train professionals in participation.

People want to be players, not spectators. The best

designers understand that the best designs respondto users and local communities. Training in publicparticipation should be compulsory for al l builtenvironment professionals before they qualify.It should be an obligatory standard of professionalpractice, not just for architects but for all disciplinesin the sector.

Guarantee funding for public engagement.Good community and user engagement doesntcome for free. Public funds are shrinking but payingfor community engagement is a good investment withguaranteed returns. All public programmes thatbenefit ordinary places should set aside funding forit. Participation helps build consensus (instead offeeding the currently adversarial planning system),

so it actually speeds things up and cuts the costof decision making, as well as producing abetter product.

Track progress.

How do you know that street upgrades andredevelopment are really making a place better, andfuture proofing it? We think that every local authority

Sparking the debate

How do you

maximise benefit

from every penny oflocal investment?


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12 Ordinary places

Mobilising public

involvement

2 Attitudes to the built environment, Ipsos-MORI for CABE, 2009

In sections 3 and 4, we expand on the points

in the summary above.

Teaching visual literacy

After 10 years experience of advising on newbuildings and spaces, CABE has concluded thatmany people who should be able to recognise

good design simply dont. This includes politicians,administrators, developers, some customers, clientsand many professionals.

CABE isnt talking about some exclusive idea aboutaesthetics. We mean the basic ideas of functionality,sustainability and identity. The East Midlands had theworst housing quality in CABEs housing audits.

A recent survey revealed that no fewer than 26 percent of people there arent interested in the wayplaces look or feel.2

To change this culture, verbal literacy and numeracyneed to be balanced by visual literacy: the ability toread the world through your eyes. The Three Rs reading, writing and arithmetic arent enough for a

country that wants to grow its creative economy andreturn to its tradition of making great places. TheFourth R architecture means getting everyoneto the point where theyve got the interest and theconfidence to articulate what they think about thestreet theyre walking down. Everyone should be ableto express an opinion on what they like about a placeand why; how it works; and what would make it better.


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Local people bring valuable skills, resources andnetworks. No one knows the locality like they do andthey have to live with new development, so they arein fact among its clients.

CABE has seen that where communities believe theirviews are being taken seriously, they will assume a

crucial role in changing ordinary places for the better.For example, at Dale Mill, a housing market renewalsite in Rochdale, the local Asian community has beeninstrumental in ensuring that the new homes built toreplace terraced housing are designed for extendedfamilies.6

High-quality places reinforce the positives in

culture and identity, making people from diversebackgrounds feel that they belong. It is even possiblefor the key organising idea behind a place to moveaway from consumption and towards participation,focused on the production of new assets that willendure for generations.7

So training in public engagement should be

compulsory for all built environment professionalsbefore they qualify, and their institutions should makeit an obligatory standard of professional practice.

Sparking the debate

How can local people

get the kind of placesthey want?6 www.cabe.org.uk/design-review/dale-mill7 Willing Citizens, Council on Social Action, 2008,

www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social_action


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Sometimes, community control can amount tohanding over accountability without power orresources. A culture change is needed to create agenuine and equal dialogue. Already local authoritiesneed to treat citizen participation as a requirement.8

It works best when it concerns something peoplereally care about. There is genuine public interest in

the built environment and concern about the qualityof places.9 Engagement in projects to improve localareas is an excellent first step towards widerparticipation in other local services.

Guaranteeing funding for public engagement

The principle of participation is crucial forprogrammes that are creating civic infrastructure,

be it hospitals, schools or parks, to get best valueover the long term. All large public procurementprogrammes should set aside an agreed proportionof their overall budget to support it.

Partnerships for Schools has successfully promotedpupil involvement in design. This could be extendedto community engagement: schools can move to the

heart of their neighbourhoods through a programmeof out-of-hours activity. A small levy on a programmesuch as Building Schools for the Future (BSF) couldprovide each school project with a dedicated fund forparticipation, saving time and money in the long term.Sparking the debate

How do you track

whether ordinaryplaces are improving?8 www.involve.org.uk/duty_to_involve9 Attitudes to the built environment, Ipsos-MORI for CABE, 2009


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Ordinary places 17

Tracking the progress of ordinary places

It is much easier to monitor and value thingsthat can be measured. Every authority investingin place improvements, from street upgrades toredevelopment, could publish their performanceagainst a quality of place indicator, signalling theirambition and measuring their success. A national

indicator for quality of place would send a messagefrom national government that people deserve tolive in well-designed and maintained places.

Local indicators for quality of place couldbe developed within a framework that allowscomparison.

CABE has created a way to measure the qualityof public spaces, Spaceshaper, and tools likethese draw out local distinctiveness, create adialogue about what is good for an area, anddont impose rigid or unrealistic regulation.

CABE believes that quality of place should featurein the national indicator set for local authorities and

in the comprehensive area assessment. There is aprecedent: all local authorities use CABEs Buildingfor Life tool to assess the quality of new housingdevelopment. How much more valuable also toassess how the whole place is doing.s

BurscoughBridgeparishclockBCALandscape


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C


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Ordinary places 19

Using a design threshold

The public sector rebuilding and refurbishmentprogramme has become a mainstay of economicrecovery, and programmes like BSF, LIFT, the PrimaryCapital Programme and Sure Start offer the chanceto improve dramatically the quality of ordinary places.Councils such as Blackburn with Darwen and Bolton

recognise this and are working with CABE to developa strong vision for how high-quality school buildingsand grounds can be used to drive regeneration, andhelp pupils to fulfil their potential.10

In World class places, the government undertookto extend the minimum design threshold adopted byBSF to all public building programmes, and CABE

will assist with this. Some departments alreadyembrace the potential from high design quality the Home Office has its own design review panel,for instance. For other departments, such as healthand transport, this threshold will present more ofa challenge.

Seizing the opportunity of cl imate change

Half of all greenhouse gas emissions11

come fromtowns and cities. There is a clear case for refurbishinghomes to improve their energy performance andtackle fuel poverty. But there is a greater opportunityto reduce carbon emissions by improving the wayneighbourhoods work.

Changing places to

become world class

10 The value handbook, CABE 200711 Hallmarks of a sustainable city, CABE 2009


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Although responding to climate change is a keygovernment priority, very few local planningauthorities understand how spatial planning for anentire place can mitigate greenhouse gas emissionsand adapt to climate change. This is crucial forunderstanding how places work, and developinga vision for change.

Local planning authorities often work to achievegovernment targets for growth of homes and jobswithout taking account of the opportunities providedby the need to respond to climate change. The keyto success with local development frameworks liesin the quality of the evidence presented. This is whyCABE encourages the use of eco and carbon

footprint studies as a standard baseline for showinghow a place works, and for managing resourcesand emissions. They help with scenarios for futuredemand for local building materials and vegetation,and show how to future-proof economic activity ina low carbon world.

Local authorities should also work together to form

coherent plans for tackling climate change in waysthat, just like the problem itself, transcendadministrative boundaries.

Sparking the debate

What is the

fastest route to

friendlier streets?


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22 Ordinary places

Local authorities can take a lead by making sureengineers and design professionals work acrossdisciplines to design streets that work for the peoplewho use them, with a hierarchy which reversescurrent priorities, to put the needs of disabled peoplefirst and the motorist last. They can learn from thetransformation of some of the places we have worked

with, such as Stamford in Lincolnshire and Ashfordin Kent.

Once the clutter associated with fast-moving carsis removed, then streets can become places withspecial meaning. At Burscough Bridge in Lancashire,for instance, memories and tales have beenincorporated as visual motifs into decorative

paving schemes.

Starting with a programme of walkabouts

Everyone is familiar with the brick box estates thatsprawl on the edge of towns and villages. CABEaudits of new market housing have shown that 29per cent has been so poor that it should never havereceived planning permission. The vast majority is

no better than average.17

Ordinary places do not have to be mediocre.People want architecture that is specific to a place.This does not automatically discount the use ofstandard house types. But it requires much better,more thoughtful site layouts and detailedarchitectural treatment.

17Housing audit: assessing the design quality of new housing in the

East Midlands, West Midlands and the South West, CABE, 2007


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However, its often more complex and expensive fora developer to get planning permission for a schemethat is bespoke, precisely because it will be differentto the standard application. Housebuilder TaylorWimpey, for example, says it would hesitate to buildan award-winning development like Staiths SouthBank in Gateshead again, despite the reputational

gain, because of the time and costs incurred by thenumber of submissions required to get an atypicalsite layout through the planning process.

This situation has to change. Local distinctivenessshould speed up planning consent rather than slowit down. But its difficult to legislate for characterand no-one has an appetite for more guidance.

So we need a simpler, cheaper solution.

A real-life example is worth a hundred volumes ofguidance. And there is no longer any need to travelto the Netherlands, Germany or Denmark to seewell-designed housing developments. Just look at theschemes that have won Building for Life awards herein England and its clear that most people have good

examples within easy reach that reflect our ownculture and context.

Whats required is a large-scale programme ofwalkabouts: professionally facilitated visits to givecouncillors, developers and local people the chanceto view and debate successful schemes together.They can see what locally distinctive design means,with a strong response to existing buildings,landscape and topography, and use of local building

materials and vegetation. They can hear about itsappeal to residents and homebuyers, and the ideawill start to become accepted, and expected. Thenlocal distinctiveness can become the norm.s

Sparking the debate

How can everyone get

on the same page?

Next steps


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24 Ordinary places

We want to hear from people about the ideas in thispamphlet visit.www.cabe.org.uk/ordinaryplacesto feed back to us.

During 2010 CABE is working with partnersto improve citizen engagement in public spacemanagement, learning from practical examples of

real and sustained engagement. We are workingwith expert partners on neighbourhood initiatives,and improving our support for councillors.

In developing the proposal for walkabouts, we willemploy the model of our education initiative,How

places work, which used knowledgeable guides toexplain the thinking and issues behind buildings and

spaces to pupils.

We are exploring models of housebuilding, includingthe issue of communities owning land and assets topromote self-help and mutual aid.

We will launch a public debate about visual literacybased on learning about the best-designed places

in Britain, with suggestions based on the advice ofyoung people, teachers and architects. Then thepublic will be invited to give their opinions.

It is in Britains ordinary places that the consequencesfrom a shrinking public purse, climatechange andweak civic engagement will be most keenly felt.The solutions to these problems will also comefrom ordinary places.

The solutions do not need to be spectacular or

eye-catching. They need to be pragmatic, sensibleand place-based. If they are, they can work.s

Next steps

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Supported by:


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Published in 2010 by CABE.

Design: johnson banks

Printed by Seacourt Ltd on revive

recycled paper, using the waterless

offset printing process.

As a public body, CABE encourages

policymakers to create places that work

for people. We help local planners apply

national design policy and advise

developers and architects, persuading

them to put peop les needs fi rst. We

show public sector clients how to

commission projects that meet the

needs of their users. And we seek to

inspire the public to demand more from

their buildings and spaces. Advising,

influencing and inspiring, we work to

create well-designed, welcoming places.

Cotswolds Photo Library/Alamy;

Image Source/Alamy;

iStockphoto/Brett Charlton;

iStockphoto/Brian Opyd;iStockphoto/chris scredon;

iStockphoto/David H. Lewis;

iStockphoto/ilbusca;

iStockphoto/Matt Jeacock;

iStockphoto/Mcklin Photography;

iStockphoto/Nick Webley;

iStockphoto/Neil Lang;

iStockphoto/ooyoo;

iStockphoto/Pamela Moore;

iStockphoto/pappamaart;

iStockphoto/Pgiam;

iStockphoto/Sami Suni;iStockphoto/susandaniels;

iStockphoto/TheBiggles;

iStockphoto/www.image-2-

photography.co.uk; Niall

McDiarmid/Alamy; The Garden Picture

Library/Alamy; Alys Tomlinson; Andrew

Hendry/www.newcenturypictures.co.uk;

BCA Landscape; CABE/Dave Morris;

Countryside Properties; David Millington

Photography Ltd; English

Heritage/National Monuments Record;

freefotouk/Ian Britton; Jefferson

Smith/bere:architects; Joe D Miles;

johnm2205/John Moore; Natural

England/Doorstep Greens; Richard

Hanson; Stephen McLaren;

This pamphlet is a starting point for CABE1 K bl St t


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p p g p

debate about creating the culture and

conditions to help ordinary places to

become valued and valuable. It asks

how people can directly influence the

quality of their places? Why dont allpupils learn about design, to help

make sense of the places around

them? Why arent all architects trained

in public engagement, so that they

can respond directly to local needs?

Ordinary places is full of new thinking

and ideas that make ordinary, commonsense. It is essential reading for anyone

interested in getting the best for their

place, from politicians and local councils

to schools and community groups.

1 Kemble StreetLondon WC2B 4ANT 020 7070 6700F 020 7070 6777

E [email protected]

Commission for Architecture

and the Built Environment

The governments advisor

on architecture, urban design

and public space

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ARQ Ordinary Places